The roots of type 2 diabetes remain in insulin resistance and pancreatic failure, and the blame for the current diabetes epidemic lies in an overall dietary pattern emphasizing meat, dairy products, and fatty foods, aided and abetted by sugary foods and beverages, rather than simply in sugar alone. A diet emphasizing vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and legumes and avoiding animal products helps prevent diabetes and improves its management when it has been diagnosed. Cataracts and glaucoma are also more common among diabetics. It is also important to note that since the lens of the eye lets water through, if blood sugar concentrations vary a lot, the lens of the eye will shrink and swell with fluid accordingly. As a result, blurry vision is very common in poorly controlled diabetes. Patients are usually discouraged from getting a new eyeglass prescription until their blood sugar is controlled. This allows for a more accurate assessment of what kind of glasses prescription is required.
What are the symptoms of diabetes in women? Diabetes can have different effects on men and women. Learn all about the symptoms of diabetes experienced by women with this article, including how the disease may affect pregnancy and the menopause. This MNT Knowledge Center article will also look at gestational diabetes and the risk factors involved. Read now
If you are a diabetic and are pregnant you can have a normal, healthy pregnancy, but you need to take extra steps to avoid gaining excess weight and high blood sugars. Lifestyle habits (eating primarily vegetables and lean protein and exercising every day) will prevent problems during pregnancy. If you are a diabetic and become pregnant, monitor your blood sugar levels often. Talk with your doctor about exploring additional health care professionals, for example, a nutritionist, health coach, or naturopathic doctor about a healthy eating plan. If your blood sugar gets out of control you may:
Some people with type 2 diabetes are treated with insulin. Insulin is either injected with a syringe several times per day, or delivered via an insulin pump. The goal of insulin therapy is to mimic the way the pancreas would produce and distribute its own insulin, if it were able to manufacture it. Taking insulin does not mean you have done a bad job of trying to control your blood glucose—instead it simply means that your body doesn’t produce or use enough of it on its own to cover the foods you eat.
It is clearly established that diabetes mellitus is not a single disease but a genetically heterogeneous group of disorders that share glucose intolerance in common (4–7). The concept of genetic heterogeneity (i.e. that different genetic and/or environmental etiologic factors can result in similar phenotypes) has significantly altered the genetic analysis of this common disorder. Diabetes and glucose intolerance are not diagnostic terms, but, like anemia, simply describe symptoms and/or laboratory abnormalities that can have a number of distinct etiologies.
Diabetes was one of the first diseases described,[107] with an Egyptian manuscript from c. 1500 BCE mentioning "too great emptying of the urine".[108] The Ebers papyrus includes a recommendation for a drink to be taken in such cases.[109] The first described cases are believed to be of type 1 diabetes.[108] Indian physicians around the same time identified the disease and classified it as madhumeha or "honey urine", noting the urine would attract ants.[108][109]

Some patients with type 2 DM can control their disease with a calorically restricted diet (for instance 1600 to 1800 cal/day), regular aerobic exercise, and weight loss. Most patients, however, require the addition of some form of oral hypoglycemic drug or insulin. Oral agents to control DM include sulfonylurea drugs (such as glipizide), which increase pancreatic secretion of insulin; biguanides or thiazolidinediones (such as metformin or pioglitazone), which increase cellular sensitivity to insulin; or a-glucosidase inhibitors (such as acarbose), which decrease the absorption of carbohydrates from the gastrointestinal tract. Both types of diabetics also may be prescribed pramlintide (Symlin), a synthetic analog of human amylin, a hormone manufactured in the pancreatic beta cells. It enhances postprandial glucose control by slowing gastric emptying, decreasing postprandial glucagon concentrations, and regulating appetite and food intake; thus pramlintide is helpful for patients who do not achieve optimal glucose control with insulin and/or oral antidiabetic agents. When combinations of these agents fail to normalize blood glucose levels, insulin injections are added. Tight glucose control can reduce the patient’s risk of many of the complications of the disease. See: illustration

The blood vessels and blood are the highways that transport sugar from where it is either taken in (the stomach) or manufactured (in the liver) to the cells where it is used (muscles) or where it is stored (fat). Sugar cannot go into the cells by itself. The pancreas releases insulin into the blood, which serves as the helper, or the "key," that lets sugar into the cells for use as energy.
It is recommended that all people with type 2 diabetes get regular eye examination.[13] There is weak evidence suggesting that treating gum disease by scaling and root planing may result in a small short-term improvement in blood sugar levels for people with diabetes.[79] There is no evidence to suggest that this improvement in blood sugar levels is maintained longer than 4 months.[79] There is also not enough evidence to determine if medications to treat gum disease are effective at lowering blood sugar levels.[79]
Exercise is very important if you have this health condition. Exercise makes cells more insulin sensitive, pulling glucose out of the blood. This brings down blood sugar, and more importantly, gives you better energy because the glucose is being transferred to the cells. Any type of exercise will do this, but extra benefit is gained when the activity helps build muscle, such as weight training or using resistance bands. The benefits of exercise on blood sugar last about 48-72 hours, so it is important for you to be physically active almost every day.

Type 2 diabetes occurs when the pancreas does not make enough insulin or the body does not use insulin properly. It usually occurs in adults, although in some cases children may be affected. People with type 2 diabetes usually have a family history of this condition and 90% are overweight or obese. People with type 2 diabetes may eventually need insulin injections. This condition occurs most commonly in people of Indigenous and African descent, Hispanics, and Asians.

The prognosis for a person with this health condition is estimated to be a life expectancy of 10 years less than a person without diabetes. However, good blood sugar control and taking steps to prevent complications is shortening this gap and people with the condition are living longer than ever before. It can be reversed with diligent attention to changing lifestyle behaviors.

Complications of diabetes are responsible for considerable morbidity and mortality. The acute complications of diabetes are hypo- and hyperglycemic coma and infections. The chronic complications include microvascular complications such as retinopathy and nephropathy, and the macrovascular complications of heart disease and stroke. Diabetes mellitus is the commonest cause of blindness and renal failure in the UK and the USA. Other common complications include autonomic and peripheral neuropathy. A combination of vascular and neuropathic disturbances results in a high prevalence of impotence in men with diabetes. Peripheral neuropathy causes lack of sensation in the feet which can cause minor injuries to go unnoticed, become infected and, with circulatory problems obstructing healing, ulceration and gangrene are serious risks and amputation is not uncommon. Evidence from meta-analysis of studies of the relationship between glycemic control and microvascular complications (Wang, Lau, & Chalmers, 1993), and from the longitudinal multicenter Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) in the USA (DCCT Research Group, 1993), have established a clear relationship between improved blood glucose control and reduction of risk of retinopathy and other microvascular complications in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). It is likely that there would be similar findings for noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) though the studies did not include NIDDM patients. However, the DCCT included highly selected, well-motivated, well-educated and well-supported patients, cared for by well-staffed diabetes care teams involving educators and psychologists as well as diabetologists and diabetes specialist nurses.
Long-term complications arise from the damaging effects of prolonged hyperglycemia and other metabolic consequences of insulin deficiency on various tissues. Although long-term complications are rare in childhood, maintaining good control of diabetes is important to prevent complications from developing in later life. [39] The likelihood of developing complications appears to depend on the interaction of factors such as metabolic control, genetic susceptibility, lifestyle (eg, smoking, diet, exercise), pubertal status, and gender. [40, 41] Long-term complications include the following:

People with T2D produce insulin, but their bodies don’t use it correctly; this is referred to as being insulin resistant. People with type 2 diabetes may also be unable to produce enough insulin to handle the glucose in their body. In these instances, insulin is needed to allow the glucose to travel from the bloodstream into our cells, where it’s used to create energy.

interventions The goal of treatment is to maintain insulin glucose homeostasis. Type 1 diabetes is controlled by insulin, meal planning, and exercise. The Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT), completed in mid-1993, demonstrated that tight control of blood glucose levels (i.e., frequent monitoring and maintenance at as close to normal as possible to the level of nondiabetics) significantly reduces complications such as eye disease, kidney disease, and nerve damage. Type 2 diabetes is controlled by meal planning; exercise; one or more oral agents, in combination with oral agents; and insulin. The results of the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study, which involved more than 5000 people with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes in the United Kingdom, were comparable to those of the DCCT where a relationship in microvascular complications. Stress of any kind may require medication adjustment in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Diabetes can also be diagnosed if a blood glucose level taken any time of the day without regards to meals is 11.1 mmol/L or higher, plus you have symptoms characteristic of diabetes (e.g., increase thirst, increase urination, unexplained weight loss). A doctor may also examine the eyes for signs of damage to the blood vessels of the retina (back of the eye). Finally, diabetes mellitus is diagnosed if the 3-month cumulative blood sugar average test, known as hemoglobin A1C or glycated hemoglobin, is 6.5% or higher.
Type 1 and type 2 diabetes were identified as separate conditions for the first time by the Indian physicians Sushruta and Charaka in 400–500 AD with type 1 associated with youth and type 2 with being overweight.[110] The term "mellitus" or "from honey" was added by the Briton John Rolle in the late 1700s to separate the condition from diabetes insipidus which is also associated with frequent urination.[110] Effective treatment was not developed until the early part of the 20th century when the Canadians Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered insulin in 1921 and 1922.[110] This was followed by the development of the long acting NPH insulin in the 1940s.[110]

Diabetes develops when the body can't make any or enough insulin, and/or when it can't properly use the insulin it makes. For some people with diabetes, the body becomes resistant to insulin. In these cases, insulin is still produced, but the body does not respond to the effects of insulin as it should. This is called insulin resistance. Whether from not enough insulin or the inability to use insulin properly, the result is high levels of glucose in the blood, or hyperglycemia.

Of course, you’re exhausted every now and then. But ongoing fatigue is an important symptom to pay attention to; it might mean the food you’re eating for energy isn’t being broken down and used by cells as it’s supposed to. “You’re not getting the fuel your body needs,” says Dobbins. “You’re going to be tired and feel sluggish.” But in many cases of type 2 diabetes, your sugar levels can be elevated for awhile, so these diabetes symptoms could come on slowly.

What are symptoms of type 2 diabetes in children? Type 2 diabetes is becoming increasingly common in children, and this is linked to a rise in obesity. However, the condition can be difficult to detect in children because it develops gradually. Symptoms, treatment, and prevention of type 2 diabetes are similar in children and adults. Learn more here. Read now